Audience Research

 
Identifying target audience for my chosen project:

● Age
The primary target audience for the film, ​Pursuit,​ would be 15-24 year olds as ​Ro,​
the main character, is a 23 year old and therefore her character will relate more
directly to people within this age bracket. Furthering this point, according to studies
carried out by the BFI, detailed in their Statistical Year Book of 2016-2017, from
2007 to 2016 people within the age bracket of 15-24 years were most likely to go to
the cinema to watch a film, and the highest recorded percentage of people within this
age bracket visiting the cinema occured in 2011 with 35% of all cinema goers falling
inside this age bracket.

Additionally, the BFI also undertook research into the popularity of individual films,
focusing on the size of the 15-24 year old audience viewing these films - information
gathered is based on films that received above-average viewing by this age group.
Their results clearly reveal the popularity of sci-fi productions with people within this
demographic. 44% of the entire audience (within the UK) of the sci-fi film (released in
2016) ​Passengers c​ ame from the 15-24 year old age group, with 41% of the UK
audience of ​Doctor Strange ​aged 15-24 also. These are just two examples of
multiple sci-fi films where a large percentage of viewers are encompassed within this
age bracket, thus the obvious primary audience, in relation to age group for this sci-fi
short, is 15-24 year olds.

What’s more, the secondary target audience (with regards to age) of this sci-fi short
would be the age group of 25-34 year olds. Likewise with the information the BFI
collated on the popularity of films released in 2016, amongst cinema goers within the
15-24 year old age group, the BFI have also gathered information on the popularity
of films, in relation to people in the age groups of 25-34 and 35-44 years old. The
statistics that resulted show that overall, less people within these age groups visit the
cinema to view sci-fi films, with ​X Men: Apocalypse​ being the only sci-fi film that
makes it into the list of films with an above-average 25-34 year old viewing audience;
24% of all viewers of this film were from the 25-34 age group. The percentage of
35-44 year olds that viewed X Men: Apocalypse is 3% less than those who viewed it
aged 25-34, at 21%. Subsequently, taking this data into account, sci-fi productions
are slightly more popular amongst the younger age group, and therefore the
secondary target audience is people aged 25-34.

● Gender
The primary target audience for this film with regards to gender is female, as the
protagonist of the short film I will be producing is female herself, and as a result her
character will primarily appeal to female cinema goers. However, other factors need
to be taken into account when analysing the popularity of sci-fi productions,
especially regarding gender. It is common for science fiction films to have a wider
and larger male audience in comparison to female audience. This commonality is
enforced by statistics gathered by the BFI, for example the 2016 sci-fi film ​Rogue
One: A Star Wars Story ​had almost double the the amount of male viewers than
female viewers, in the UK, with 66% of the viewers being male and only 34% of
females viewing the film, which clearly suggests that this film was more heavily
targeted towards male viewers (films that incorporate elements of action and
technology tend to have larger male audiences).

Conversely, there are discrepancies to the notion that all sci-fi films are catered to
males solely. The 2016 film ​Passengers ​is a perfect example whereby the audience
viewings didn’t suggest a larger popularity with one gender in particular. The
audience was split completely down the middle with 50% of the audience male, and
50% female. This result have may incurred because the film featured both a male
and female protagonist, and additionally incorporated elements of the genre of
romance with the sci-fi genre. This suggests that sci-fi productions do appeal to
females within society, but even more so when elements of romance appear. As a
result of these findings, it is apparent that, taking into account of the gender of
protagonist in ​Pursuit​, in addition to the information provided by the BFI on the
statistics on views based on genders, that the short film should cater to both male
and female audiences.

● Socio-economic status
The female protagonist within the short film has an 9-5 office job in Manchester city
centre. Ro herself is working class and thus the short film will have a primary
audience of working class people.

When finding the secondary audience for this short film, there was minimal evidence
of data recorded for the popularity of sci-fi films within the 2016-2017 Statistical
Yearbook for the BFI - however, the Yearbook did clearly outline the popularity of the
sci-fi film, ​Rogue One: A Star Wars Story​ - the data was collated from the AB social
group (upper class and upper middle class) I looked at their Statistical Yearbook
from 2014-2015 and I found, using the standard occupational classification (SOC),
that 41% of all viewers of the sci-fi film ​Interstellar f​ all under the C1 social grade
class, which is lower middle class, which therefore suggests that sci-fi films appeal to
a lot of people from this class, and so the short sci-fi film I will be producing would
also appeal to people from this social class.
 ● Geodemographics
The short film will be shot in Manchester, England and so will directly appeal/target
audiences from Manchester and the North West in general as these people will
recognise the certain aspects of the area they may have a personal connection to
and attach memories to (featuring shots of the Beetham Tower/Arndale) and thus will
feel more attracted to the short film.

The secondary audience for this short film will most probably be located in the region
in and around London because, as found by the BFI, the majority of audience
viewings came from London, with 28% of the entire viewing of the sci-fi film X Men
Apocalypse, coming from London.

● Ethnicity
No information regarding ethnicity is documented in the 2016-17 BFI Statistical
Yearbook and so I searched for data elsewhere and found some potentially useful
information on the ethnicity of audiences viewing films within the 2015-16 BFI
Statistical Yearbook, but no information in particular directly referencing the
popularity of sci-fi films. The BFI reveals that, black and minority ethnic groups were
over-represented within theatrical audiences, and were in fact, under-represented
among the buyers and renters of video and digital format productions.

The BFI further went on to list quantitative data on the range of ethnicities that went
to the cinema, bought and rented video and digital format of films. This investigation
revealed that only 7.9% of people (aged 13+) from black and ethnic minority groups,
went to the cinema or purchased digital formats of films, compared to 93.8% of white
13+ year olds, who visited the cinema or purchased digital formats of films.

● Occupation
The female protagonist within the short film I will be producing has an office job
within Manchester city centre, therefore, the primary target audience for this
production will be those people who work in such jobs that are similar in nature to the
female lead. The Standard Occupational Classification is a means by which people
are categorised into a class system based on their occupation. The occupation that
the protagonist has means that she falls under the C1/B category in this class
system, which therefore means that she is in the lower middle to middle class
bracket and thus this production will primarily aim target people from this bracket.

● Sexual Orientation
The sexual orientation of the protagonist within this short film will not be detailed, as
it will not be a relevant aspect that affects the trajectory of the narrative.

● Psychographics
Psychographic variables relate to any such attributes of personality, values,
interests, attitudes, or lifestyles and are often referred to as IAO variables (Interests,
Activities and Opinions). The short film I will be producing will be of the Sci-Fi genre
with elements of the Action and Thriller genres interwoven and thus, in terms of
psychographics, this production will primarily aim to target audiences that have an
interest in these three genres of film.

Website Links:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-statistical-yearbook-audienc
es-2016-2017-09-27.pdf
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-audiences-2015-11.pdf
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-statistical-yearbook-audienc
es-2015-2016-08-25.pdf